Garden Poles

In this activity, learners build large-scale structures and cantilevers in a series of "building out" challenges with garden poles and tape. In doing so, learners will experience many of the basic physics and engineering concepts inherent in structures as well as explore the concepts of torque and center-of-mass. This resource guide contains background information, discussion questions and extensions. This is a good activity to do near the end of a unit on structure and scale, and should be preceded by an activity about building on a smaller scale like "Straws and Pins" (see related resource). Learners will need a lot of space for construction and collapse, so a playground or cafeteria is recommended for both building and storing the materials.